


Show Me Your Teeth

by Nina_Dances_In_Technicolor (orphan_account)



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician)
Genre: AU, Community: cottoncandy_bingo, Feeding, Gen, M/M, Nurturing, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 11:01:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Nina_Dances_In_Technicolor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam comes out . . . again. This time, it's as a vampire, but even in the midst of what will surely be a media firestorm, he has time for the people he loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Show Me Your Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> Written for for the prompt "sunrise/sunset." Um, this one kind of got away from me? But it totally relates in an oblique way, sunrise, sunset, vampire . . . . and I tried to throw in a couple of mentions for the actual prompt. Um, oops, sorry? (Also, the title is from Lady Gaga's "Teeth" and was a no-brainer, but I couldn't be arsed to make the lyrics actually fit the story since it seems to be about getting bitten during sex. Still a great listen.)
> 
> Also: Has the recent uptick in angsty emo "romantic" vampires who are angsty and emo because they have emotions ever made you want to vomit? Then this fic--a moment's glance into the life of a happy, well-adjusted vampire with emotions, and a vampire who is only unhappy because he's got serious work deadlines, yo--is dedicated to you, dear reader.

"We call them donors, or feeders. And they're not objects to us, they're precious. We'd hurt them about as much as we'd hurt our own kids."

Adam watches as easily half a dozen of the reporters in front of him completely misinterpret that as him having a child of his own, then shifts his weight on the podium. He hates press conferences. Finally some little brown-haired girl with very big glasses raises her hand. Adam nods at her.

"If everything you've said today is true, then the only differences between you and a flat-out human being are the need for blood and you sunburn really easily," she says, in a quavering voice with 'cub reporter' written all over it. Adam mentally vows to give her a great answer, if he can; in his experience sometimes that's all it takes to boost somebody up to standing up for themselves. "So why 'vampire'?"

"Because there are so many legends, and modern add-ons and deletions and stuff, nobody really knows what a 'vampire' is anymore," he tells her. "The earliest writing about something that might be a vampire is 3500 years old, and who knows what was around before then or what things early vampires might have done to protect themselves? It's a term everybody understands and pretty much agrees on, instead of having to come up with some fancy word to argue over."

He watches her scribble in her notebook, waits for other hands. There are none, and finally his publicist takes over, thanks everyone for coming, thanks everyone for their interest, thanks everyone for how objectively she's sure they'll share the facts with their readers and viewers. _It's a wonder we don't thank them for staying dry the whole time,_ Adam thinks, half-amused, and then he's backstage again and there's a pair of soft, warm lips against his, the scent of Sauli warm and spiced and full in the air. Adam immediately snuggles into Sauli's neck, smells the warm and lively pulse of the blood there and rests his head on Sauli's shoulder.

"You did wonderfully," Sauli tells him, and leads him gently to the closet this particular venue chooses to call a greenroom. "Have you fed yet?"

"Yeah, I had part of a unit this morning," Adam answers, and wrinkles his nose. "I hate that anticoagulant shit they put in it. Tastes like hell."

"If it was clotted, though, Adam—"

"Pretty sure I could still eat it. Never tried, but blood is blood." He sinks down onto the couch and stretches out, closes his eyes before opening them again to look out the single tiny window at the sunset, bright orange and gold and red. "So now we wait."

"Not—for long," a voice says from the doorway, and Adam turns his head back to smile at Brad, a tiny golden figure in the dying light. Sauli smiles and reaches out a hand.

"Do you know if Arlene is here?" he asks, and Adam shifts expectantly. Arlene was his flock-mother, the one Leila found during a desperate search for answers why her sunshiny-sweet little boy started attacking his baby brother in the middle of the night. Arlene was the one who calmed Adam's hysterical parents, answered their questions, taught Adam first to drink and then, when he was six or seven and finally had a jaw big enough to fit someone else's neck, to bite. They fell out of touch after Idol and then back in when he went on tour, when he realised that for the first time in his life, he had no idea how to feed responsibly. A good portion of what he said tonight came out of Arlene's guidance, and Adam genuinely hopes she made it up from San Diego; walking in sunlight doesn't bother her but driving for several hours in it does, even with a good sunscreen.

"I—think I—saw her," Brad answers, and Adam frowns. He's not really _lisping_ , not exactly, but the sounds he needs his tongue against his teeth to make are coming out all wrong.

 _His teeth,_ Adam thinks, and beckons Brad to sit near the sofa. "Baby, what's with your mouth?"

"Ah?" Brad looks up, and in the golden glow from the window Adam can see the shape of his lip, just a little distended and—

"When was the last time you fed?"

Brad shrugs and shakes his head. "Couple of—weeks," he says, and the way he forces the W out tells Adam everything he needs to know. "Deadlines."

"We need to find you a feeder," he comments, and swings his legs off the sofa, back into shadow. Sauli plunks down next to him, and then Adam feels a heavy weight in his lap and Sauli's lying across his legs, neck turned gently to the side. Brad makes a face that's trying to be his usual pissed-off expression.

"You're not—" he says, and then there's a pause and what comes out is "nallucaneeuffy," which Adam slows down in his head and parses out to _an all-you-can-eat buffet._ Sauli is staring at Brad with his eyebrows knitted in concern, and Adam relays the last part of the sentence. Sauli's face smooths back into its usual happy calmness.

"I know," he says. "But I have spent two days eating spinach and red meat and orange juice waiting for Adam to come home and now—" and he pinches Adam's leg, not hard, exactly, but mischievous, playful—"he tells me that he has fed already, and if you need blood it is a shame to waste, yes?" He reaches for Brad's hand again and tugs him the last of the distance to the sofa, indicates he should sit on the floor. "So, let me feed you, and then we will help you to find a donor so it does not happen again."

Brad looks up at them both, a question in his eyes. Adam reaches out and touches the circles beneath them. 

"I don't give a shit about your deadlines, I give a shit about your health," he says. Then he nudges Sauli's shoulder. "Babe, you're gonna have to sit up. He can't bite."

"Ah?"

Brad shakes his head and slides two fingers under his upper lip, pulls it away from his teeth; his fangs must've dropped, what, three, four days ago, Adam thinks, staring at where they thicken and curve below his gumline. Sauli reaches out a single questioning finger, and Brad flinches back before it can touch his teeth. 

"They hurt when they get that thick," Adam explains, when Sauli stares quizzically up at him. "C'mere." 

Sauli pushes himself up onto all fours and then into Adam's lap, and Adam buries his face in Sauli's neck, smells the pulse there, thinks to himself about the night before he left for some Japanese promo when they made love and he fed while they were both still sweat-sticky and gasping, and finally his fangs drop and he curves his tongue around the place they'll pierce so he can taste those first couple of drops. 

Sauli tips his head back, the way he always does when Adam's teeth sink in, and before he can settle into feeder-trance Adam pushes his legs gently down the sofa, makes him lie with his head in Adam's lap and his body relaxed, limp, lying down safe and steady. Then he reaches for Brad's shoulder—Brad's eyes already blank, hungry with the smell of blood—and guides him toward Sauli's neck.

There's a whimper when Brad gets his first mouthful, a sound Adam associates with long nights and naked skin and love, and he snuffles at Sauli's neck for a moment like an infant at the breast before he finds a comfortable position and starts to suck. Adam strokes his hair, rests a hand on Sauli's waist and rubs a long circle from waist to hip and back again. Sauli lets out a half-dreaming kind of "mm" sound and shifts under Adam's hand, then goes still again. Adam watches the skin of Sauli's neck, just beyond Brad's lips, moving and slowly turning a light hue of rose.

Finally Brad sits back, licks his lips and then runs the flat of his tongue over Sauli's neck. The light bruise beneath the skin stays; the open marks disappear, and Brad looks up at Adam, eyes still half-asleep. Adam smiles down at him.

"Give him a minute."

He reaches out a hand to Brad and runs the other through Sauli's hair, strokes his arm and face and down the back of his neck until Sauli squirms and rolls over and looks up.

"My neck itches."

"Let me see it." Adam slides an arm around Sauli's shoulders, makes sure he's steady before helping him sit up; he's never met a vampire who needed even as much blood as a donation bag, but that doesn't mean lightheadedness can't come with the territory. 

Sauli tilts his head obediently. Adam frowns, tips Sauli's neck into the light from the window, looks closer, then starts to laugh. Brad blinks up at him.

"We've been joined by another vampire," Adam announces. "Look." He chuckles again. "You've got a bug bite, baby."

Sauli wrinkles his nose. "Can you not fix it?"

"No. Spoiled," Adam tells him, before kissing the little red bump below the bruise. "My spit and bug spit are two very different things. Brad, how's your teeth?"

"Smaller."

Adam glances up from Sauli's neck and sees Brad, still wincing a little, lift his lip again to gingerly inspect his gums. Adam reaches for the remains of the glass of vodka and 7-Up he had before facing the press hounds and dips a finger in. "Here." He rubs a little of it over Brad's gums, especially the parts that are red and sore-looking instead of healthy and pink, and watches Brad relax as the last bit of vodka numbs them out. "Your fangs are still dropped."

"But they feel normal again."

Adam reaches down to pull Brad up into his free arm. "Good." He pauses. "Do you have a donor you can call tonight?"

Brad shakes his head. "Jane offered, but she's out of town until tomorrow afternoon." He makes a face. "And I love her, but there's something about feeding off a chick."

Adam chuckles and burrows his face for a second into Brad's hair, inhales his scent: bone-tired and in need of more blood, but well-fed otherwise and healthy—nothing a second feeder and a few days' worth of good sleep can't fix. "We're having a party at my place tonight. Spare room's open if you want to hibernate, but there's going to be all kinds of people there who've offered me blood on short notice before. You could feed and maybe get some sleep before you head home."

"If I get any sleep, you'll probably be peeling me out of your guest bed at three tomorrow afternoon," Brad tells him. Sauli stretches.

"If you are so tired, then it is good that you sleep," he comments. "It is not a bother."

There's a knock on the door, the gentle _tap-tap_ of a discreet manager. "Adam, you have people waiting for you."

"Be right out," he calls, and pecks Brad's forehead before turning in the other direction to take from Sauli's lips what he didn't take from his blood: strength, comfort, calmness. "Let's go find Arlene."

Sauli offers up one last kiss before sliding his arm through Adam's and leaning against his side. "Yes. And if we do not see Bradley tonight, I think that we should go to his house and if he is not sleeping, tie him up and bring him back with us."

"Kinky," Brad comments, and as they head for the door in the last of the sun's glow, they all laugh.


End file.
